Christians believe that unbelievers are destined for an eternity of the most unspeakable torments.

Christians believe that they are destined for an eternity of paradise where anybody not present will be suffering the aforementioned torments.

Christians do little to prevent this, engaging in superficial evangelism at best and acting smug about it at worst.

Christians have more empathy.

And now a word from our favorite amphibian sage:

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Flesh and blood of a dead star, slain in the apocalypse of supernova, resurrected by four billion years of continuous autocatalytic reaction and crowned with the emergent property of sentience in the dream that the universe might one day understand itself.

(14-01-2015 11:11 AM)Tomasia Wrote: There seems to be an overall decline in empathy among society as whole. There are several studies indicating this:

Ok.

(14-01-2015 11:11 AM)Tomasia Wrote: Another study suggests this decline is more pronounced between believers and unbelievers, often in the double digit range:

This was based on a survey. That's not a very reliable means of ascertaining facts. It's also not surprising that believers would self-report their empathy whether true or not because it's typically what their religions would expect of them.

(14-01-2015 11:11 AM)Tomasia Wrote: The demographics of atheism also shows that males are more attracted to atheism than females, as well as high-functioning autistics.

(14-01-2015 11:11 AM)Tomasia Wrote: Both of these parties show less empathetic responses:

If those are true, and that's a big "if", it probably reflects the emotional component of religious belief. The more emotional a person is, the more likely therefore they would be a believer.

(14-01-2015 11:11 AM)Tomasia Wrote: While the evidence doesn't suggest that atheism leads to a lack of empathy.

Correct (all except for the period - it should have been a comma).

(14-01-2015 11:11 AM)Tomasia Wrote: It does seem to strongly suggest that those with a declined sense of empathy are attracted to atheism, and perhaps even a driving force for the growing population of unbelievers as a whole.

I don't see how, even if correlation implied causation (which we all know it doesn't), one would arrive at this conclusion.

(14-01-2015 11:11 AM)Tomasia Wrote: Another aspects that seems to be supportive of this, is the attraction to strong systemizing among many unbelievers, the appeals to the hard sciences, and methodologies, and perspectives of the world, that are highly dependent on such systemizing aspects, and a derogatory perspective on non-systemizing perspectives, and observations.

How does this support that lower empathy is more likely to lead to an attraction to atheism? What it supports is that those who are willing to think critically instead of passively accepting what's fed to them on a spoon are more likely to understand the reality right under their noses.

(14-01-2015 11:11 AM)Tomasia Wrote: The less empathetic we are, whether because of genetic predispositions, or social and environmental factors, the more we seem to be attracted to systematic observations, and atheism. The decline in empathy, and growth of unbelievers is unlikely to be just coincidental, but seems to be a significant contributor to disbelief. This position seems to be strongly supported by a number of studies, several of which I've cited here.

The hammer is the only one that will be a useful weapon in the zombie apocalypse.

Yes. We played the Sesame Street game with the expanded rules.

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Flesh and blood of a dead star, slain in the apocalypse of supernova, resurrected by four billion years of continuous autocatalytic reaction and crowned with the emergent property of sentience in the dream that the universe might one day understand itself.